Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/73

70 B.C.] measure had the merit of settling once for all this much disputed question by a compromise which divided the juries between the orders in the proportion of one of the senatorial to two of the non-official class. But though useful in quieting the rivalry between the orders, it is doubtful whether the new law did much to make the courts more pure or more impartial.

Cicero rendered an important service to the party of reform by breaking through his usual practice of accepting briefs only for the defence, and by bringing to trial the most flagitious of all the offenders, Caius Verres, the notorious prætor of Sicily.

I will not attempt even a summary of the appalling misdeeds of Verres. Every calamity which the lust, the cruelty, and the rapacity of a tyrant could inflict on his slaves, was endured for three years by the miserable Sicilians. Cicero's description of the governorship of Verres serves as a sort of high-water mark to show to what a pitch of iniquity men set above the fear of responsibility may attain, when granted absolute power over a subject population. I prefer to dwell on a matter which could be treated by the orator with lighter touches.

The name of Verres is perhaps best known and remembered as that of the most inveterate pillager of all the great army of unscrupulous art-collectors. Nothing which was at once beautiful and portable escaped his fingers. From the plate at the tables where he was invited to dinner, up to the most ancient image of Ceres in her native seat of Henna, which was believed to be sanctified by the very